A few years ago, after some traumatic events brought me undone, I concluded that honesty in every aspect of my life is the only policy, so I don’t lie anymore. Writing this book would have been much easier had I never made such a decision.

I denied it for a while but eventually I just began to accept it. I started admitting I was gay, because, I reasoned, if you say, ‘Yes, I am a fag, what’s the big deal?’ then it’ll deprive the finger pointers of their fun. It’s no fun calling a fag a fag when he happily calls himself one. So at school I didn’t get teased about being gay from Year 10 onwards.

Presentare il suo fidanzato – Lachlan – in famiglia

Even after six years, I still have a little trepidation about introducing him to the rest of the family, even though they’ve all expressed how eager they are to meet him. When I try to pinpoint the source of my apprehension, I can only put it down to the subliminal message that I, and no doubt countless other young LGBT kids, picked up from society: that gay is not as good as straight. It’s quite terrifying to realize that, despite all the evidence to invalidate our concerns, this subliminal message we take on as children gets so deeply rooted that it impacts what we believe about ourselves and how we live our lives for years and years.

Essere se stessi

I had been a mass of insecurities. I had erected barriers, and people didn’t know how to navigate the terrain of me, so they steered clear. Now that I was myself, I attracted good people. My life was so much better now.

Essere attivisti nella vita di tutti i giorni

I believe that the most positive thing I can do for gay people is not to be a hardline, humorless activist, but simply to live my life as a decent, caring and responsible human being first, and sportsman second. The fact that I’m gay is incidental.

Preoccuparsi delle cose su cui abbiamo potere

I began chanting the Serenity Prayer in my head before a dive as a relaxation tool. I had learned it in rehab, and they say it at the end of every Narcotics Anonymous meeting. The prayer eased the pressure too: ‘God, give me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference’. What this meant to me in a diving context is that it would be the London Olympics judges’ job, not mine, to compare the divers’ performances and decide who had done the best. There was no point in worrying about my rivals, just the things I could control. I couldn’t control how Tom Daley or Qiu Bo would dive, whether they dived superbly or muffed it. I could control my own practice, my own choice of dive, my own fitness, my own relaxed frame of mind, my own performance.

Vincite e sconfitte

My training before Beijing had been entirely physical. I had consciously avoided doing any psychology, as I didn’t want to get into all that messy stuff in case it affected me in competition. But because injuries had interrupted my physical training in the lead-up to London, my hardest training was psychological. I developed the mental and emotional maturity to come out of the London Olympics with a better and more positive attitude towards not doing well in competition. Winning doesn’t necessarily mean happiness, and failure can mean growth. When things don’t work out in life, it can actually build the strength of your character. And if you celebrate all of your achievements, big and small, you’ll always be a winner.

Depressione

Now I know that no one should ever feel that they need to have a reason for being depressed. Some depression arises from trauma. Some people are physiologically predisposed to depression and can be equally depressed even when the world is at their feet.

Chiedere aiuto

I can’t stress enough the benefit of reaching out. A problem shared is a problem halved. If I had known then that you can’t do it by yourself and that it is actually a sign of strength to ask for help, I would have done it. As a teenager I thought I knew everything, and apparently I didn’t.